


young and full of running

by sharoncarters



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7325758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharoncarters/pseuds/sharoncarters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sharon Carter and Bobbi Morse graduate from SHIELD Academy, search for the greatest burger in the country, learn how (not) to gamble, and live the American dream, among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	young and full of running

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this for what feels like forever, mostly because i've had major writing block and haven't been able to finish an actual fic since i've gotten out of school. i really hope you like this, though. i just have a gut feeling that sharon and bobbi would be best friends, and bobbi's quote on aos about the burger has really cemented this for me.

It happens like this: Bobbi comes back from the dining hall, ponytail swinging, and launches herself onto Sharon's bed, completely scattering all of Sharon's carefully organized notes. Luckily Sharon has her laptop in her hands, or that would’ve gone flying too, along with the rest of her patience.  

After Sharon gives Bobbi a stern look, collects the notes that she’d been using to study for her last ever Covert Espionage final, and tells her to grab her a bottle of water from the fridge to compensate for the terrible inconvenience, Bobbi says, “Let's go on a road-trip.”

“A what,” Sharon deadpans, not even looking up from her laptop screen. Bobbi has ideas like this all the time. Sharon does too, but she knows that they’re not realistic. There’ll be time for fun later; after they’ve graduated, after they’ve established themselves as agents. The mission always comes first. It’s a lesson that Sharon had learned from experience. From Aunt Peggy’s mistakes and successes, and from class. It’s not one that she’ll soon forget, no matter how much she may sometimes want to say _screw it all_ and run away. 

Something that Sharon has also learned, pretty early on, is that Bobbi’s never been one for excessive fanfare or elaborate set-ups. She’s a great spy, but Sharon knows the real Bobbi, the one that doesn’t care for calculation or planning, the one that convinces her to sneak out and get tacos at three AM in the morning. Bobbi can cook up a scheme easily, but she prefers to do things spontaneously. 

That’s what Sharon loves about her. She and Bobbi have always matched when it came to their levels of mischief. They both have a penchant for troublemaking; it’s the reason that they became instant friends, and continued to request each other as roommates after their first year at the Academy. 

On the first day of her freshman year, Sharon had burst into their shared room, out of breath and soaked in sweat from outrunning some goon that she’d already managed to piss off in the parking lot. Bobbi had covered for her, pretending to be a clueless blonde who had no idea what the guy was talking about when he came knocking on their door, pretending to not even know that she had a roommate. They’d laughed about it over ice cream that night at the dining hall, and had been almost inseparable ever since. Bobbi’s never once given Sharon crap about Aunt Peggy, either, unlike some of the other students. It’s something that Sharon has been infinitely grateful for, especially when she was being harassed on a daily basis. 

Bobbi rolls her eyes in response to Sharon’s non-response. “A road-trip. Come on, I know you’ve read  _On the Road_. It’ll be great,” Bobbi adds, seeing that Sharon’s unconvinced. Sharon finally looks up at her best friend and roommate of four years. “We can find America's greatest burger. Like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, except we’re hot.” Sharon snorts at that. “Come on,” Bobbi repeats, practically begging. “We talked about it on your birthday.” Sharon rolls her eyes, remembering that birthday, albeit not vividly. It was about a month ago, and they were both drunk off their asses on cheap wine that Trip had smuggled in. She hadn’t thought that Bobbi was actually being serious. 

“Our first assignments start in two weeks,” Sharon reminds her. Sharon has no problem with the first part part of the plan, the spontaneity of it all. She can picture it, even. Open roads, turning the radio up the highest it can go, screaming the lyrics to all their favorite songs. 

A road-trip across America just wasn’t something that people like them did. 

Road-trips were for normal people, or, as normal as people that wanted to go on road-trips could be. Even though it was vaguely American-dreamy, the idea of it, the attainability of such a dream was for average people. College kids. Newlyweds. _Not_ spies in training. Sharon can’t even remember the last time she’s been on a date, let alone the last time that she’d felt a single bit of normal. 

Because training at the Academy just wasn’t normal. It was exciting and amazing and a lot of other adjectives, but normal wasn’t one of them. 

The timing is another thing. They’re set to graduate in a week, and already have their assignments for afterwards. SHIELD doesn’t like to waste time. They've set Sharon up with an apartment already, and have given her an itinerary of where she should be and who she should be with for the first month after school ends. 

“I'm aware,” Bobbi says, throwing Sharon a sly grin. Lucky girl finished all of her finals the day before. 

“Greatest burger, huh?” Sharon asks, gently placing her laptop down on the bed. Bobbi’s grin widens. “Don’t get too excited,” Sharon says, narrowing her eyes at her roommate. Bobbi purses her lips, trying not to laugh. Sharon fights her own grin as she fake-contemplates Bobbi’s offer. “Hypothetically, if I went along with this, we’d make it back in time for our firsts jobs?” she asks. 

Bobbi nods seriously. “Of course.”

“And we’d hit a burger joint in every town we go to.” 

“Naturally.” 

“Cheesy top one-hundred playlist?” 

“Indubitably,” Bobbi adopts a fake English accent. Sharon breaks first, bursting into laughter. Bobbi cracks seconds later, falling onto her back on Sharon’s bed, scattering even more study materials, but Sharon can’t be bothered to clean them up. She’s been studying for _hours_. “So it’s a yes, right?” Bobbi cracks an eye open, wiping away a few laugher tears that have spilled over her cheeks, glancing up at Sharon. 

“Let’s do it.” 

Bobbi lets out a huge whoop, flying across the room towards her laptop. “You won’t be disappointed, Carter! This’ll be the greatest road-trip of your entire life!”

 

* * *

 

“I want to come,” Tony starts when Sharon answers her phone. She’s still slightly delirious from her final, head throbbing and desperate for a drink, alcoholic or otherwise. No one should be forced to take multiple-choice exams at eight AM in the morning.

Her last final at SHIELD Academy, _ever_ , just let out; graduation just two days away. It’s mind-boggling. Her and Bobbi’s trip is the only thing that stands between Sharon and the rest of her life. 

“Come where?” she asks him, and can practically see the shit-eating grin plastered on Tony’s face. She walked right into this, but she’s too tired to care. At least he’s not here to see her face-palm. Sharon scoots around some students in the hallway, steering herself towards the dining hall. It’s pizza day, if she’s remembering correctly, a perfect way of celebrating the exam that she’d just aced. All of her studying had paid off. 

“This whole conversation merits a ‘that's what she said’. On your road-trip, loser,” he clarifies, like she should’ve known. Sharon stops in her tracks, ignoring the curses of angry students behind and around her. 

“How do you even know about that? And I know you can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes, _Michael_.” He really needs to stop watching The Office. 

Sharon loves Tony, of course. He’s the only family member she has left, besides Aunt Peggy. But it’s not like she wants him to have complete tabs on her entire life. She needs her own things sometimes, without her older cousin protecting her. No matter how sweet he is (or the fact that he’s not really her cousin, but that’s irrelevant. Tony is family, and that’s that). 

“Bobbi told me about it,” he says, no change in tone. As if he and Bobbi are friends. 

“Since when are you and Bobbi friends?” she asks, finally making it to the dining hall. She scopes it out for Mack or Trip, knowing that Bobbi is going to be sleeping for at least another hour. Trip waves her over from a corner near the drink station, and Sharon lifts her arm in acknowledgement, heading towards the food line. 

“We’re friend _ly_.”

“Being in a group chat with us that _you_ set up after meeting her _once_ doesn’t constitute being friends.” Sharon looks through the fruit selection and drops an apple onto her tray. 

“I’d beg to differ,” Tony mutters on the other end of the line. “Someone needs to keep an eye on you for me.”

“That’s sweet, Tone,” Sharon sighs, handing over her ID for a quick scan, “but you still can’t come.”

“Rude,” he huffs. Sharon laughs. 

“Love you too, talk soon.”

“Bye, squirt.”

 

* * *

 

They pack. It’s convenient, because they’re moving out anyway, to set aside a few suitcases for the trip. They’re not keeping it a secret on purpose, per se, but they do want it to just be a Bobbi and Sharon thing. They want it to be an experience that they share as friends, without anyone butting in. They’re planning on leaving the day after graduation, giving them almost exactly two weeks on the road, so that they can get back home with one day to spare before their assignments start. SHIELD gives its new students a week to get settled before their new jobs start, and even that’s pushing it.

Sharon remembers that one of her professors had tried to petition to get that rule changed. To no avail, obviously. 

The trip will be tricky, especially if they veer off course, but Sharon thinks that they can do it. They don’t have a set plan, really. They’re just going to drive west until they hit new states, and their end goal is Las Vegas. Bobbi’s idea. 

Sharon overpacks, of course, trying to think of any and everything that could happen to them on the road. She has a first aid kit, snacks (they’re growing women, okay, they need to eat), bags and bags of toiletries, even books. She’s never done something like this before. Bobbi packs way too many clothes and they have to sit on her suitcase for it to close. 

Trip lets them borrow his truck on the down-low, a red, glaring thing with only a few scratches, parking it at Bobbi’s parents’ house, who thankfully ask fewer questions than Aunt Peggy would’ve. Sharon loves her aunt, but she’s a bit too keen on knowing when and where Sharon’s going to be at all times. It comes with SHIELD territory, which is why Sharon doesn’t want to tell her about the trip. Sharon doesn’t want to worry her. Peggy has enough on her plate without having to deal with a wayward niece. 

For all of his whining, Tony has promised to keep his mouth shut, too. All that was left to do was sit and wait.

 

* * *

 

After all of it: graduation and afterparties and dinners and hugs and tears, Sharon comes to Bobbi’s one last time to spend the night before they’re off.

Graduation is a grand affair, with professors speaking for what seemed like hours, alumni and directors and past-directors all making appearances. Aunt Peggy was even asked to speak, but she had declined because she didn’t want to upstage Sharon’s big day. It meant a lot to Sharon that her Aunt Peggy would do that for her, another addition to a never-ending list of all the amazing things Peggy’s ever done. 

Aunt Angie cries and pretends she hadn’t. Uncle Gabe scrounges up as many Commandos as he can find, and they all whoop and holler when Sharon gets her diploma. Even Tony sheds a tear, not that he’d ever admit it, more like his father’s friend Angie than he’d like to be, and he hugs Sharon as tight as possible when she bounds over to him after exiting the stage, Bobbi in tow. 

“I won’t tell them where you two are going,” he winks, looking over at Sharon’s older family members as he does so. “But just so you know, I bought a burger place in Tucson.” Sharon’s mouth drops open in a silent, astonished laugh. “I was drunk and kind of bitter when you told me that I couldn’t go. It’s called Tony’s. Promise you’ll go.” 

Bobbi’s doubled over laughing next to her, practically howling as the tears stream down her face, but Sharon can’t help but scrunch her face up, looking at him with pure affection. For all of his quirks, his asshole moments, and his complete fuck-ups, Tony was still her family. He’d been her best friend for so long; teaching her how to fight off bullies, taking her to the movies, making her food when she stayed over at Aunt Peggy’s. Sharon’s shoulders shake, but she manages to relax and finally agrees. There’s really no choice to make. 

“Of course we’ll go.” 

And even though it had seemed like a moment stuck in time, graduation eventually had to end, and now Sharon’s lying on an inflatable mattress in Bobbi’s room, and she can’t sleep. She’s no longer a student. She’s a certified SHIELD agent, and her life was starting. 

It was all starting.

 

* * *

 

Their first day goes like this: Bobbi flips someone off while driving, they barely make it out of DC, Tony calls and Sharon ignores him, just for kicks; and it is a magnificent feeling, like no one can touch them and never ever will, these two girls with the entire world in front of them.

They stop just outside of DC to eat at a burger place that Sharon loves. It’s tucked away in the corner of a side-street off of Route 66, which makes it that much more special because it’s hard to find, and Sharon had found it driving around one weekend with Aunt Peggy and Tony. 

She feels a slight pang of regret for not inviting him along, but Tony has to understand that Sharon needs to do this, and after graduation, she thinks he does. He’d had years before she was born, years while she was growing up, to find himself. He had Rhodey and MIT, and Sharon never had anything like that. Everything in her life was geared towards a certain goal: go to the Academy and become a SHIELD agent. Sure, she’s had other dreams. There was a stint in middle school where she thought she could be a professional food critic, but she knew that would never pan out. 

Sharon needs this. This one moment of freedom before she will no longer have any. Which isn’t a bad thing in her eyes, anyway. She knows what she’s signed up for. She just doesn’t want to feel like she’s missing out on anything. 

Bobbi understands. It’s probably why she offered up this trip. Sharon can see her eyes widen as she pulls the van into the Earl’s Burgers parking lot, a slightly greasy biker bar that’s a little bit intimidating. It looks like a dump; the brick dirty, the sign flickering even this early in the morning, but Bobbi’s eyes light up nonetheless. They both know how deceiving appearances can be, and how incredible burgers are that come from places like this. Just because something costs tons of money doesn’t make it good, and they have to start off their trip with a bang. 

Sharon looks over at Bobbi as she puts the car in park, the way that she lights up in the face of danger, and thinks, _I never want to lose her as a friend_. Sharon can imagine how amazing it’ll be going on missions with someone she knows so well; how seamlessly they’ll be able to fight together, just like they already do in class. They’re going to be the best new agents SHIELD has ever seen. 

They bounce into Earl’s, high off of just the idea of this trip that they’ve just barely started, and settle into the red booth they’re given, grinning like absolute losers. They don’t care. They order large milkshakes and even larger burgers, stuffing their faces like teenagers, forgetting the fact that they were teenagers not that long ago. 

Earl himself comes over to ask them how the food is, and they beam, grease dripping down the sides of their mouths, laughing like they’ve never had the freedom to before. That’s what this is, this entire trip. It’s freedom. It’s a chance. 

A chance for what, Sharon’s not exactly sure, but as Bobbi snores in the passenger seat next to her on their way towards wherever they’re going next, for once Sharon doesn’t care about the things she doesn’t know.

 

* * *

 

There is something magical about the road in the middle of the night; the twists and turns, the never-ending-ness of it all. Out here in the Midwest, away from the Academy, the noise and the ceaseless chatter of girls in their dorm, the sirens, the cops and the yells from outside of their window, it’s breathtaking. Sharon and Bobbi take turns hanging their heads out of the window, just feeling the midnight air flowing through their hair, knowing that it’ll get tangled but not caring, because this is new and exciting and everything that they could have ever hoped for.

Sharon kicks her feet up on the dashboard, laughs at the cows, shoves chips into her mouth by the handful in a way that they never would’ve allowed her to do at the Academy. She feels free and alive, her blood pumping and her chest tight with happiness. This is the last chance that they have to do something with absolutely no rules. No missions, no guidelines, just their hearts telling them what to do. 

If they want to stop at a motel, they can. If they want to change their names for fun, and not for some strategic reason, they can. A week ago Bobbi had bought them horrible, oversized t-shirts from a Stop-and-Shop and they had hustled a bunch of truckers at pool in their awful granny outfits and it was magnificent. Sharon and Bobbi had left the older men gaping, slack jawed as they had collected their winnings, laughing the entire way. 

Sharon knew this entire thing was a horrible idea. She was starting to love it way too much.

 

* * *

 

They listen to country radio and laugh unapologetically with the windows down, tangling their unwashed hair until they scrounge enough money to stay at a motel for a few hours. It’s not like they’re broke. They have money, just not a lot of it. There’s no working a part time job while you’re at the Academy. It’s full intensity, all the time. And because they hadn’t told anyone they were going on the trip, no one had offered them any money to help them with it. And Sharon had refused to take any handouts from Tony.

There was something more believable and exciting about doing it this way, besides. Sharon likes greasy bar food, Bobbi has learned, and they eat at McDonald’s too much for it to be just a treat and not an everyday occurrence. 

There’s a particular incident in which they’re hustling pool — probably not a great idea, but they have a proclivity for not so great ideas that end up being way too much fun; case in point, their current location — wherein Sharon gets a little bit sloppy drunk and drops her cover. Turns out that she’s actually way better at pool drunk than she is sober, which is a feat. 

Truck drivers in shoddy bars in Wichita, Kansas, however, are not as impressed by this fact as Bobbi is. Sharon almost gets into a fight with (Chit? Chip? He’d slurred his name when he told them) over her cheating ways, and Bobbi drags her off and peels the truck out of the parking lot, laughing the entire time. They end up at their motel way past midnight, eating Cheetos out of a Costco bucket and watching cartoons on TV for so long that it changes to porn at some point and they can’t be bothered to change it. It certainly has an impact on their neighbors, but they don’t stay in the same place long enough to care. 

Sharon falls asleep first, drunkenly singing the Spongebob theme song, and Bobbi goes not long after, stumbling back to bed after washing her cheese-covered hands in the sink.

 

* * *

 

Everyone always talks about road-trips like they’re the key to life itself; like they’re the way that you find yourself, the American dream, something that everyone should do once. No one mentions the awful things about it though, even though the rest of it is true.

Sharon realizes that her bladder is a lot tinier than she gave it credit for. Sure, she had to run to the bathroom three times for every cup of coffee she drank at school, but that was different. She didn’t have any coffee now. Driving through Oklahoma on their way to Texas is a lot harder on a full bladder, no toilet paper to speak of, empty fields for miles, and Bobbi glaring at her from the driver’s seat. 

“How are you supposed to be a spy if you can’t even hold your pee?” she grumbles, shooting Sharon another look. Sharon wants to protest and command her (former) best friend to focus on the road while she’s driving, but it’s not like they’re going to get into an accident. There are less cows here than there were in Indiana, and they haven’t seen another car pass them for at least an hour. Which is great and also terrible, Sharon’s emotions swinging between feeling like a queen and hating her body’s low levels of pee storage. 

Bobbi had offered to stop the car so that Sharon could pee on the side of the road, but she hasn’t been able to stoop that low. Yet. One more bump in the road and she might have to change her mind. 

“Did you know that Tycho Brahe died because he held in his pee for too long?” Sharon shoots back, crossing her arms (and her legs) in frustration. “True facts.” 

“Okay, a)”, Bobbi starts, brow furrowing in annoyance, probably because she has to pee too but she won’t admit it, “how do you even know that? And b) irrelevant, because that was the eighteenth or whatever century and we’re way ahead of that now. And you’re going to have to be out for hours on missions or stakeouts — do you think Hydra will wait for you to take a potty break?” Bobbi’s voice is teasing towards the end, trying to lighten the tension in the car. Spending endless hours in someone’s presence seems idyllic at first, but after days of non-stop driving the girls are starting to get on each others’ last nerves; it’s inevitable. 

People just need their alone time. 

“Some of us actually listen to our required S&T lectures, B,” Sharon grins, momentarily forgetting her discomfort. “And to our slightly nerdier friends.” 

“I listen to our friends!” Bobbi protests, “When they’re talking about actual science. I couldn’t care less about dead guys.” She’s right. Bobbi has always been more application, less history. She thrived in the lab, among her colleagues. Sharon was practically the opposite. That was the price of growing up around a living legend. She couldn’t help but be amazed by Aunt Peggy’s stories, to constantly wonder and ask for more, more, more. Sharon loved the field, but that wasn’t why she applied to the Academy. 

She did it for the people. The ones she had helped, the ones that Aunt Peggy helped, the ones that she’s going to help in the future. The lives that are worth saving, _that’s_ why Sharon’s doing this. And of course she feels stifled at times and she wants out, but isn’t that every kid in college? 

Sharon knew that all of the studying, all of the running and fighting and scars and bruises were worth something. She was _worth_ something, and so was her training. She was going to make a difference, make Aunt Peggy proud, make her parents proud, wherever they were now. One last hoorah with her best friend wasn’t a big deal, in the larger scheme of things. Especially if it helped her focus more later on. 

But for right now, “Bobbi, I _really_ have to pee.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you ever think about it?” Bobbi asks after a long period of comfortable silence. They’re parked in an abandoned field somewhere in the middle of New Mexico, on their backs in the trunk of the truck. Sharon lets her knees fall, lolling her head towards Bobbi, their blonde hair splayed out around them, two fans of sunshine in the middle of the night.

There are so many stars, here, where the city isn’t there to interrupt them. Sharon wishes she had paid more attention to Tony when he’d tried to explain them to her, years and years ago. She still can’t believe that she’d ever been that little. 

“Think about what?” Sharon asks Bobbi. She thinks about a lot. Chief of which is the current thought occupying her brain, the question of whether or not they’re going to be safe sleeping in the truck overnight without getting kidnapped. They can handle themselves, of course, but it’s still scary, the idea of someone trying to hurt them when they’re outside, vulnerable like this. 

Bobbi closes her eyes, breathes in for a second, and shrugs. “I don’t know. All of it. The future.” 

“What’s there to think about? We join SHIELD, we work our way up, we do our jobs. We help people.”

“That simple, huh?” Sharon’s never experienced a silence like this before, especially not from Bobbi. Even when they were just studying in their room, the quiet was never like this. It’s heavy between them, a silence that encompasses their entire lives, everything that could possibly happen to them. A silence filled with possibility. Sharon remembers reading about something like this. The sublime, they called it, The Greats, in capital letters, did. Something amazing and terrifying in equal measure.

It’s too much. Sharon doesn’t want to think about the future. She just wants to do what’s right. Everything else can fall in afterwards. She changes the subject, cracking a joke, knowing that Bobbi will understand. Using comedy to try and mask real emotion — it’s a habit that Sharon must’ve picked up from Tony after following him around for all those years. 

“Why don’t we talk about the fact that I’m going to be single _forever_ ,” Sharon dramatizes, sitting up and flailing her arms in mock-theater fashion, “and I’ll _never_ find a man to love me for me, and life is a miserable abyss and nothing has any meaning.” She finishes with throwing her arm over her face and falling back down on the blanket that they’ve spread out, giggling and breathless, her laughs spurred on by Bobbi’s.

“You’ll find someone, Share,” Bobbi insists, going quiet again. “We both will.” 

“And if we don’t,” Sharon says, “then fuck it.” 

Bobbi huffs out a laugh through her nose.

 

* * *

 

Trip’s truck breaks down somewhere between Arizona and their final destination ( _ha_ , Sharon laughs to herself, _get it?_ ) of Las Vegas, where they are going to gamble away the rest of their money and get wasted and act like the reckless kids that they’re supposed to be. They’re making spectacular time, before it happens. They have no doubt that they’ll be back for their assignments in time.

It’s raining when it happens, a slight stall in the engine, just as a real thunderstorm is about to start. Bobbi’s eyes go wide and she clasps a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, because this is just _typical_ , and at first Sharon’s slightly angry but then Bobbi laughs, a loud HA!, and Sharon snorts, and they’re pulling into the nearest gas station, hysterical. 

Maybe it’s the extra Red Bulls that they’ve had, or the anticipation of being _this close_ to Nevada, where they can finally act like the twenty-one year olds they are, but they just don’t care. They park the truck near one of the pumps and grab sweaters from their suitcases, pulling them over their heads as they run through the rain and into the adjoining convenience store of the Shell station, giggling all the way. They’re completely underdressed, their tank-tops and shorts soaked, along with all the other parts of them, hair included. 

They call Trip, asking for advice about his truck, and he explains everything as quickly as possible while Bobbi shops for back-up snacks and Sharon jots everything down on a few slips of toilet paper, sitting cross-legged in one of the aisles. 

The teenager working the counter gapes at these girls, these carefree, laughing blonde girls, like he’s never seen a woman in his entire life. He would’ve gladly given Bobbi the food for free, Sharon thinks, had his boss not walked in while they were checking out. 

If Sharon had told herself, coming into the Academy for the first time, that she would’ve ended up here, she would’ve laughed and called herself an idiot. But now she’s here and she might be a little tipsy on energy drinks and she’s never felt like this, this _light_ , on her way to Tony’s burger joint and then to Vegas. 

_Las freaking Vegas, Nevada_ , Sharon thinks, fixing up the truck when the rain finally stops sometime after nine, Bobbi holding a flashlight up towards the engine. _Imagine that_. 

 

* * *

 

It is everything and more, Las Vegas is.

(Tony’s place had been fine, if not a bit manufactured, one of those places that acts like it’s family run but actually feels more like a chain. Sharon doesn’t blame Tony for buying it, of course, because it’s not like he would’ve known. He’s funny about things like this, always starting projects that he doesn’t want to really finish, almost like he’s waiting for something. 

Maybe one day Sharon can help him fix up the place, help him turn it into one of the places she likes. A place with old red diner booths, an ice-cream bar, a juke box; maybe a cheesy flashing sign or two. She never said she wasn’t sentimental. She texts him that it’s great and he texts back that their food is on the house, and Sharon allows it.)

But Las Vegas, _man_. Even during the day, it’s overwhelming. Bobbi can’t stop taking pictures, and Sharon mostly walks around in awe, amazed that a city like this can exist. She’s always been sort of a New York (and DC, now that she lives there) girl at heart, but this city could easily steal her heart away. 

“What did I say?” Bobbi grins, and Sharon shoves her shoulder as they climb out of the truck, stretching their legs in what feels like forever. Sharon puts a day’s worth of coins in the parking meter that they’d pulled up to, preventing any towing disaster. The last thing that they needed was to lose their friend’s car after a night of gambling, drunk and short of money, and have to construct an elaborate scheme to sneak into an impound lot with limited tools and weakened senses. “Is this place incredible, or what?” 

“How many times do I have to say you’re right before your ego deflates, Ms. Morse?” Sharon grumbles sarcastically, imitating one of their professors, Mr. Branson, who’d had the worst nasally voice. They never could hold it together in class when he’d say Bobbi’s name like that, and it had resulted in a detention or two, on occasion. 

“About thirty, I’d say, Miss Carter,” Bobbi draws the name out, searching through the truck’s small backseat, looking for her party outfit. They were going to club all day like crazy party animals, and they didn’t care who knew it. Even with the short delay, they still had time to even go shopping, which was a feat in and of itself. 

Of course, not all girls who went clubbing had loaded weapons and knew twenty ways to kill a man with just kitchen utensils at their disposal, but Sharon and Bobbi were going to protect those girls as much as they could. A sense of justice doesn’t disappear with a few beers, you know. “Here’s to losing all our money,” Bobbi grins, tossing Sharon the dress she’d chosen from her suitcase. 

“And hopefully winning some of it back,” Sharon laughs, locking the truck’s doors.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Sharon and Bobbi accomplish a lot in the span of one short day and the entire night. They (unsuccessfully, but they’re blaming the alcohol for it) sneak into a Britney Spears concert, eat three orders of nachos, six hamburgers, and drink twenty (maybe thirty) different types of drinks, including but not limited to tequila, strawberry milkshakes, and rum.

Sharon throws up and Bobbi laughs at her for a bit, but then she’s the one vomiting and Sharon’s the one holding her hair, and they call it quits. 

They lose almost three thousand dollars, but somehow manage to break even before they leave their fifth casino of the night. Had they been remotely sober, they probably could’ve counted cards and gotten away with it, but where would the fun be in that? 

Sharon stops a creep from taking advantage of a girl not much older than her and Bobbi, while Bobbi publicly humiliates him by pointing him out to every customer in the casino. He gets kicked out by the guards not long after, and the girls buy Andrea, or Andie, as she likes to be called, a giant teddy bear with their meager winnings (this is before they lose some, and then win some, and then _finally_ manage to break even). 

Andie invites them to her hotel room to repay the favor, and the girls take advantage of the giant room to take showers, because the room that glorious, wonderful Andie is sharing with her friends has not one, but three bathrooms. Take _that_ , loser pervert. 

Best of all, when they stumble back to the street that they’d parked their car on (after asking at least six different people how to get there), the meter still has five minutes left on it, and all of the windows remain in tact. 

It’s a successful end to a road-trip, in their humble opinions.

 

* * *

 

Sharon rests her head on Bobbi’s shoulder, chewing on a Red Vine and chasing it down with root beer as her friend takes the first shift in navigating them back to DC. “I can’t believe we did that,” she says.

“Which part?” Bobbi asks, widening her mouth slightly for Sharon to place candy into. She chews for a bit after Sharon feeds her a Vine, and then swallows, continuing. “Hearing Britney live for five minutes, or ripping that dick in the casino a new one?” 

“All of it,” Sharon laughs, kicking her feet in the breeze that she feels outside of the window. She’d always used to rest them on the dashboard of cars, before, but this way is much more exciting. Of course, it does come with the risk of sunburn, but it’s worth it. “But I’m glad we did it.”

“I’m glad we did it too. Wouldn’t have wanted anyone else by my side.” 

“Oh, you absolute sap.” 

“Don’t push it, Carter.” 

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think! i don't have a license and i'm not that good at navigation (if that wasn't already glaringly obvious lmao) but i hope it wasn't too distracting in the work.


End file.
